I asked the UNICEF folks to write a couple of paragraphs about the project:

This data visualization was created to coincide with the launch of the annual Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed report, which uses data from UNICEF to provide an update on global progress around maternal, newborn and child survival.

This year’s report makes encouraging reading: the number of under-5 deaths worldwide has been halved since 1990, falling from 12.7 million to 6.3 million in 2013. Nevertheless, the report emphasises that this still equates to 17,000 under-fives dying every day, or one every five seconds, and in 2013, one million newborn babies died on the day they were born. This is all the more tragic given that the majority of these deaths can be prevented using simple, affordable solutions such as folic acid supplementation, skilled birth attendance and early initiation of breastfeeding. The report calls for concerted action to improve quality of care for newborns and under-fives, led by governments, civil society and the private sector.